Another kick to the groin for Europe’s already-flailing economy. Europe? Yep. Spain is part of the Eurozone. Its economy is linked to 16 other economies — including France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and the Netherlands. I’m glad to see that experiment is working out so wonderfully.

MADRID (AFP) – Spain announced Friday its jobless rate surged to a 13-year record above 20 percent at the end of 2010, the highest level in the industrialized world, as the economy struggled for air.

It was more bad news for an economy fighting to regain the trust of financial markets and avoid being trapped in a debt quagmire that has engulfed Greece and Ireland and now menaces Portugal.

Another 121,900 people joined Spain’s unemployment queues in the final quarter of the year, pushing the total to 4.697 million people, said the national statistics institute INE.

The resulting unemployment rate was 20.33 percent for the end of the year — easily exceeding Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s target of 19.4 percent.

Spain appears to be stuck in a rut of staggeringly high levels of unemployment.

But they have high-speed rail! And salmon! Barack, baby, tell us where they went wrong. Maybe they’re just not ready to win the future. Who knows.

Spain is Europe’s fifth largest economy and, as previously mentioned, its economy is tied to economies across Europe. People all across the Eurozone should be worried by this development. Because the situation doesn’t appear to be getting better. Not yet.